My 2013 PAX West demo came courtesy of Oculus executive Brendan Iribe, who put a duct-taped, unfinished VR headset over my eyes before booting a modified version of Doom 3. Almost instantly, I praised the immersion. I oohed and ahhed at my ability to rapidly turn my head to line up demon-killing buckshot. I appreciated the lighting and perspective tricks used to convey how much chaos was going on all around me. There really was nothing like it at the time.

Oculus continued demonstrating this build of Doom 3 at other events to drum up excitement for its eventual headset, a fact not lost on the folks who happened to own the Doom license. The ensuing legal battle between Bethesda and Oculus has been legendary, but no lawsuit could wipe away that intrinsic link created between Doom and VR by this formative demo.

That's a lot of baggage for a long-awaited video game to hang onto, but finally, the world has its first official, full-blown Doom VR game. (You can probably guess what the "F" stands for in its official name, Doom VFR.) And yet, it lands not with a heavy-metal rip-and-tear, but with a perfectly reasonable shotgun blast. Doom VFR is totally fine at best if you get to play it on PC with a full HTC Vive VR kit. On that platform, the game's satisfying Doom 2016 elements collide with underwhelming VR optimizations and a wimpy runtime of a few hours.

Sadly, the game has also been shoehorned onto PlayStation VR, and the results there are almost impossible to recommend.

Teleport to Hell

How Doom VFR looks in action on PSVR, including an always-on UI for health, weapon info, and more.

Once you weaken an enemy enough, it will glow, just like in last year's 2D game. Teleport into the demon at that point to "glory kill" it for a health boost. (PSVR image.)

Unfortunately, during the heat of combat, it's easy to lose track of that health- and ammo-bar info, owing to its spot in the corner and utter lack of peripheral-hint data (like, say, a changing or flashing color). It's usually a surprise when you die. (PSVR image.)

The scale of Doom's scariest baddies really impresses in the heat of a good gunfight. (HTC Vive image.)

The last two images here are definitely sweetened compared to how the game looks in a downscaled VR headset.

This captures the spirit of Doom VFR, but even our 1080Ti testing rig couldn't get the resolution and effects up to that level.

Doom VFR is similar to the 2016 Doom reboot, in that players are dropped onto a demon-overrun military outpost on Mars before eventually descending into Hell. You control a different soldier one year later, and he audibly ambles about various people and objectives as an obnoxious narrator. This Doom VFR aspect is a disappointment compared to the "eff the plot" attitude of "Doom guy" in last year's version, but he's easy enough to ignore. All you need to know: Demons are bad. You have guns. Time to kill.

Further Reading

VR shooters are a different breed from their standard, flat-screen siblings, of course. The constant running, jumping, and spinning you might do with a mouse or a joystick doesn't necessarily translate to VR, whether because players don't have physical space to move around or because so much motion can make players feel woozy if they're not actually moving in real life. I would argue that this year's most successful VR "adventure-shooter" game, the PSVR exclusive Farpoint, pulls this off by combining a comfortable turn-and-move system with a clever "always run forward" level design philosophy.

Doom VFR is a little more complicated. Its most action-filled moments revolve around battles within massive, multi-tiered arenas (mostly brand-new ones, not ported firm the 2016 game) where enemies swarm in every direction. Thus, you need to spin around and rapidly move to survive. If you play on the HTC Vive, you won't have a joystick, since its motion-tracked wands don't have any. Instead, you'll rely on a mix of a "teleport" button and a "dash" button.

Further Reading

The former lets you hold down a button, aim your left hand somewhere, and auto-warp to that point, so long as your pointing arrow is green when you let go. You can ascend to high platforms or descend to depths and down stairs with the teleport. The dash button, on the other hand, only works on the same altitude you're already on, and it insta-warps you a few feet in whatever direction you tap.

Both of these maneuvers require pressing the Vive wand's giant touchpad, by the way, and if you press the wrong spot on the pad, you'll insta-dash instead of prepping a teleportation. This is weird, because the teleportation move requires holding the pad down; why didn't id Software allow this to work with your thumb on any point of the touchpad? This may seem like a silly distinction, but when you're in the heat of a crazy battle and cannot manage your teleports properly all because of a badly coded system, the rage builds quickly—and for the wrong reasons.

Other than that annoyance, however, warping and blasting around in one of Doom VFR's arenas can be quite satisfying. Rather than try to make this a balanced blaster of a game, id Software opts to crank up the game's powers and its dangers simultaneously. Your hero starts out wielding a crap-ton of weapons and ammo, along with a "freeze nearby foes" move and a hearty amount of slow-down control when aiming and teleporting around. To compensate for this possibly being too powerful, Doom VFR's battles dump insane, powerful bad guy after insane, powerful bad guy into your field of view.

Plus, the "glory kill" mechanic returns from last year's game, though now in VR, you simply teleport directly into an enemy's body when it has been weakened. Do this, and its body explodes around you in bloody gibs. Unfortunately, these insta-splode attacks animate weirdly and feel a lot less satisfying than the similar melee-to-finish maneuvers in the 2016 version.

Still, the glory-kill move offers a nice "get health" incentive to teleport into madness, and the game ultimately delivers a harrowing and exciting series of battles... for as long as they last. Doom VFR tops out at roughly four hours, and half of that time is padded with crushingly boring "run around your home base" time-filler tasks between the big battles. These require teleporting around until you warp to exact spots to trigger levers and item-grabs, and it's among the most obnoxious FPS stuff I've encountered in ages. I would have much rather the game filled that time with more opportunities to blast the game's hearty cast of insane demons. Pretty much every Doom 2016 baddie returns here, and their variety of lurches, dashes, wall-crawls, and ranged attacks is better than any VR blasting game.

41 Reader Comments

I had a blast playing the first level last night on my PC with my Vive!(Would have played longer except I have a cold and thus low on energy.)Disclosure: My rig is an i7 with a super clocked 1080Ti. Also I've been a major Doom fan since 1993.

It's got some quirks to the design, and not allowing left-handed players to hold the guns in their left hand is egregious, but it is effing fun as Hell. And I play games for the fun factor. =)

I feel like the length is the biggest issue with this game, and current VR games in general. We're making progress - Skyrim is certainly not a three-hour playthrough - but until we get new games with tens of hours of content, it'll be tough to fully shake that "tech demo" feeling that a lot of these games give.

We're still a few years off from the majority of VR games being "full-length", but if we're lucky, it'll coincide with even bigger price decreases for the headsets and the computers that power them. If the timing is right, that'll be when it truly takes off.

Even with unnecessary padding, Doom VFR clocks in at around three hours of content.

That isn't a game it is a tech demo and should be free.

If developers want VR to take off they are going to need to build games with hundreds of hours of content (Fallout, Skyrim, etc). 3 hours really?

A) not everyone has that much time - personally I much prefer a focused game that does its thing and leaves as opposed to one full of boring repetitive grind so they can advertise 100s of hours of content.

B) fast paced VR games like this can be really tiring or nauseating, and it’s recommend to take a break every 15-20 minutes. Even if you don’t have these problems, the multihour gaming binges don’t really work on VR by it’s nature.

Despite that I agree it would be nice to have some long games for VR and more variety, but it’s still in its infancy and I doubt a lack of super long games is what keeps VR from taking off.

I'm happy to report that Samsung actually shipped me my Odyssey HMD earlier than the 30-day backorder date I had been warned of. Picked it up last night, but haven't plugged it in yet.

The other good news is that 'Windows Mixed Reality' compatibility logos have started popping up for a few SteamVR games, including Arizona Sunshine, but sadly for me, not Rez Infinite. Games without the WMR compatible logo might still work on Windows HMD headsets, I'll have to check it out this weekend.

Just playing around with the hardware offline, the headset seems very nice, and I was pleased to find that the Odyssey HMD accommodated my giant hipster glasses (although they were pressed quite close to my face), and that the AKG earphones lined up nicely with my ears (this was a problem several reviewers had with the earpiece adjustability). IPD adjustment looks promising; there are no physical distance markers, but you can move the eyepieces closer or further apart with a dial on the front. A '+/-' button on the front rounds up the adjustability and presumably controls volume. I don't see a 'mic mute' toggle, so be mindful in social spaces. Optics are aspheric Fresnel lenses, I'll have to see how good/bad chromatic distortion, off-center sharpness, and god rays are in addition to keeping an eye out for screen-door.

The wands fit nicely into my hands, with a graceful ergonomic curve for the thumbsticks and trackpads. Build quality on them seems pretty good, not as high end as my Xbone elite controller, as is to be expected, but definitely not "cheap feeling". I'd rate the build and heft as somewhere between xbone controller and PS4's dualshock 4s. Hopefully the trackpads are not as bad as the terrible touchpad on the DS4.

Of course, the real test will be when I actually plug the thing in and use it.

I feel like the length is the biggest issue with this game, and current VR games in general. We're making progress - Skyrim is certainly not a three-hour playthrough - but until we get new games with tens of hours of content, it'll be tough to fully shake that "tech demo" feeling that a lot of these games give.

We're still a few years off from the majority of VR games being "full-length", but if we're lucky, it'll coincide with even bigger price decreases for the headsets and the computers that power them. If the timing is right, that'll be when it truly takes off.

Is "full length" necessarily a desirable factor for VR games in general?

On the one hand, user fatigue from standing/walking/dodging and the weight of the headsets+controllers might make long gaming sessions undesirable.

On the other hand, the hassle of clearing the workspace, laying out cables, and putting on the actual headset make the decision to play VR non-trivial, so ultra-short sessions might not make it worthwhile to invest in the setup effort.

I think it'll take developers, publishers and users some experimentation to find the sweet spot(s) in session length and total gaming time for VR games. I have a feeling 'seated VR' games might have the most leeway in user experience.

Even with unnecessary padding, Doom VFR clocks in at around three hours of content.

That isn't a game it is a tech demo and should be free.

If developers want VR to take off they are going to need to build games with hundreds of hours of content (Fallout, Skyrim, etc). 3 hours really?

A) not everyone has that much time - personally I much prefer a focused game that does its thing and leaves as opposed to one full of boring repetitive grind so they can advertise 100s of hours of content.

B) fast paced VR games like this can be really tiring or nauseating, and it’s recommend to take a break every 15-20 minutes. Even if you don’t have these problems, the multihour gaming binges don’t really work on VR by it’s nature.

Despite that I agree it would be nice to have some long games for VR and more variety, but it’s still in its infancy and I doubt a lack of super long games is what keeps VR from taking off.

If (B) is accurate it seems like VR itself is a tech demo. I don't need to binge games all day, but if I sit down for entertainment purposes I plan to be doing it for an hour or more. Certainly not 15 minutes.

I refunded it last night before valve fixed it for oculus users. If Oculus was actually supported it would have the best controller for the game by far. It can easily do everything the vive wands do but it also has dual analog sticks for those of us who can stomach traditional controls.

This morning when I read about the work around I also got to see the many reviews from Vive owners complaining how the game feels like a vive launch title in early access. At that point I said to hell with it and installed the VR mod for doom 3 BFG edition which works really damn well for an unfinished alpha that hasn't been updated in a while. My Oculus touch controllers could do both teleporting or true fps movement at the same time, the guns handled perfect and looked to be held correctly, they actually move with your hands like VFR but I guess in VFR the gun is always at an odd angle. It also had a ton of settings to tune to make the game comfortable for anyone. There was even an option to hold my flashlight in either hand or stick it on the gun...hell you could change weapons by flicking the right analog stick up or down or if you want you could use virtual holsters...it was incredible. It was better than what Bethesda had on offer with VFR I'm every way except for visuals. Longer too considering it was all of doom 3 plus 2 expansions.

The mod even goes so far as to give you the option of multiple 3rd person camera angles during cutscenes and some of them like the intro to the game are shown from the perspective of the air traffic control room instead of just hearing the voice then appearing on the platform when the ship lands.

So in the end I'm glad they made it not work on Oculus because I had a much better experience with an older game. It actually seems like Bethesda was actively blocking Oculus by creating a mesh error in the main menu that valve fixed probably in hopes of keeping refunds down. The end result though.is Bethesda punishing its own customers for an issue it has with Facebook and that's just not cool. I think I've bought every single Bethesda branded game on launch since Morrowind....hell I bought Skyrim for the 5th time on the switch last week.

I think I'm done though....I can't see myself giving them money if they are going to treat me that way. I mean Jesus even the Windows mixed reality headsets work and those are essentially Oculus designed as far as the reference design goes for both the HMD and controllers. Sorry Bethesda but...you lost a long time customer over something stupid. Now I either won't play your games or I'll wait for the GOTY edition with all the dlc and all the bugs...most of the bugs fixed and then when it's on sale for $10 I'll pick it up, or maybe I'll do 1 better and buy it USED at GameStop for the x1x or whatever.

I also have zero problems with motion sickness in VR games (yeah, lucky me), and usually turn on smooth everything, fast turning, all the movement, etc.

My VR experiences differ so wildly from the reviewers... I don't really know what to think.

Once you've downloaded the patch, and worked out what to think about the PSVR version, maybe you could post some reflections here in the thread. (No snark, it's just I was interested in the PSVR version and 'teleported' to this review, only to be disappointed by Sam's take on this. He is not always right, though)

This review misses out in a key feature of PSVR without accurate testing - The PSVR aim controller

The game plays fluidly and movement feels normal. Strafing is easy and natural and most of the time equal to that of a typical PS4 controller primarily because of the aim controls inclusion of double joysticks.

I own a Vive, Oculus and PSVR and I can tell you now - PSVR Aim controller is where Doom VFR is best played.

Do not play this game without a PS4 aim controller and you will be happily sucked into the hellish nightmare that is Doom VFR

Bethesda / Zenimax do not advertise this, and they apparently did no QA (it requires a fix that's only in the Beta Version of Steam VR, so make sure to have that installed otherwise it's going to crash on launch), but yes, it does work and it is fully playable.

How about just, you know, put the regular Doom into VR without stupid joysticks, other gimmicks and standing up? FPS are meant to be played with a keyboard and mouse and using a headset instead of a monitor would take it to another level. Not saying that the motion tracking and the gimmicks can't be good, i have tested them and they can be incredibly fun, but for that to work you have to develop a completely different game model. The whole point of Doom is fast paced action and you can never be as fast, precise or dynamic while waving your arms around and doing squats as you can with a simple mouse and keyboard.

I absolutely loved Doom and i can't even imagine how awesome it would be to play it in in VR, but with the same level of speed, movement and intensity as the regular game. I mean what is the point of VR if you can't transcend your human limitation and do things you can't in real life? Motion sickness is mostly in the mind, it can be overcome with some practice.

How about just, you know, put the regular Doom into VR without stupid joysticks, other gimmicks and standing up? FPS are meant to be played with a keyboard and mouse and using a headset instead of a monitor would take it to another level. Not saying that the motion tracking and the gimmicks can't be good, i have tested them and they can be incredibly fun, but for that to work you have to develop a completely different game model. The whole point of Doom is fast paced action and you can never be as fast, precise or dynamic while waving your arms around and doing squats as you can with a simple mouse and keyboard.

I absolutely loved Doom and i can't even imagine how awesome it would be to play it in in VR, but with the same level of speed, movement and intensity as the regular game. I mean what is the point of VR if you can't transcend your human limitation and do things you can't in real life? Motion sickness is mostly in the mind, it can be overcome with some practice.

My thoughts exactly... Playing Half Life 2 in VR is still the best VR experience I have had. The VR specific controls have a ton of potential but still need some work.

Even with unnecessary padding, Doom VFR clocks in at around three hours of content.

That isn't a game it is a tech demo and should be free.

If developers want VR to take off they are going to need to build games with hundreds of hours of content (Fallout, Skyrim, etc). 3 hours really?

A) not everyone has that much time - personally I much prefer a focused game that does its thing and leaves as opposed to one full of boring repetitive grind so they can advertise 100s of hours of content.

B) fast paced VR games like this can be really tiring or nauseating, and it’s recommend to take a break every 15-20 minutes. Even if you don’t have these problems, the multihour gaming binges don’t really work on VR by it’s nature.

Despite that I agree it would be nice to have some long games for VR and more variety, but it’s still in its infancy and I doubt a lack of super long games is what keeps VR from taking off.

If (B) is accurate it seems like VR itself is a tech demo. I don't need to binge games all day, but if I sit down for entertainment purposes I plan to be doing it for an hour or more. Certainly not 15 minutes.

I have not found B) to be true at all. In poorly designed games, maybe, but otherwise I've had multiple several-hour play sessions with no nausea, in pretty fast-paced games. The only thing that forces a break sometimes is the terrible default headstrap on the Vive.

This guy had no problems at all with Doom VFR on Playstation, once you enable free move it works just fine but for VR beginners that level of movement may be unforgettable. VR capture from PS is half resolution what player sees so that why it looks poor but in game it looks fine.

While Doom VFR is far from perfect on PSVR, it's also far from an avoid at all cost.

I've been playing it for the past 2 nights while switching between DS4 and AIM, lots of fun with either, also both have flaws.

To start, I despise teleporting and snap turning, I don't like to stand either while playing so I haven't tried the move controllers. Still the game forces me to teleport as there is no jump button, even the smallest ledge needs to be teleported onto. Oh well, telefragging is a fun game mechanic.

I can't really choose what's better between AIM and DS4. AIM is nicer when exploring and shooting the occasional monsters, DS4 is more reliable during waves of combat. Both offer full fast movement and full fast rotation. (I've set both rotation options to 80)

AIM pro:- Aiming feels natural, gun feels right.AIM cons:- Drift is still possible throwing off aiming in the heat of battle.- Larger guns clip through you, distracting.- Strafing messes with aiming due to some weird inertia being applied. When you strafe right the gun jitters to the left and will intersect the rocket launcher.- The grenade launcher (left hand) is distracting, just turn it off.

DS4 pro:- Aiming by looking is fast and always accurate.DS4 con:- Aiming is too high by default. I have to aim my head down and look up with my eyes to shoot at enemies on the same level as me. If I hold my head level the guns are pointing 15 degrees up. It gets tiring after a while.- The guns do not move at all, it's like driving a gun turret.

Both con:- You need to charge up alternate fire with square, which means you can't turn while charging up secondary fire. (R1 is used for teleport, I guess you can swap those for DS4 in accessibility options, too bad that's applied system wide)

Game con:- Despite turning on smooth rotation you also still move in the direction you're looking in as if you're playing while standing. There is no option to turn that off and unfortunately interferes with movement.

Despite all that, it's already a lot of fun and a few simple fixes could make it great.- Disable gun inertia with AIM, the game shouldn't move a gun you are physically holding.- Disable the graphics for the rocket launcher, it's only distracting.- Add a calibration option for aim height with DS4.- Make buttons configurable, square for alternate fire is a poor choice.- Add an option to disable moving in the direction you're looking in.- Add a jump button!

As for playing long sessions, I've already put over 55 hours into Skyrim VR. There I prefer the move controllers although the snap turning is annoying. (A patch is incoming to allow free rotation with move, next to the free movement it already has) Although free movement is fine is Skyrim VR I don't think Move will ever be useful for fast paced fps. It needs analog sticks.

Even with unnecessary padding, Doom VFR clocks in at around three hours of content.

That isn't a game it is a tech demo and should be free.

If developers want VR to take off they are going to need to build games with dozens of hours of content (Fallout, Skyrim, etc). 3 hours really?

I was waiting for the LG headset as I like valves tracking method, the new controller design(knuckles), and was wanting a higher res screen but purchased a Rift during the sale. Three hours sound quite low but I'd be willing to pay that no sweat given I made my purchase fully knowing the industry is just starting off. I want to encourage developers to make games and not paying them for their efforts might not be the right move. I'd rather something like this be made and be expensive then not made at all. This will change of course once VR is more established but I don't mind the pricing to content quantity at all right now. I'm now more excited for the next gen headsets and controllers.

I remain convinced that FPS games are not what VR works best for. There's no real way to get around the disconnect between running about in game, and not doing so in the room you're playing.It feels that the majority of modern games are base around a FPS idea, and I think we're going to have to shift away from that into more cockpit-based games before VR really shines.

I think they only made a Doom VR game because they had the IP and wanted some sweet, sweet VR money. Judging how a lot of media is old stuff being remade, we may see a lot of well known IP's on VR, if VR games do well enough to make bigger companies that own the IP's too want to make the VR games in the first place. What i can see that there really is a market for VR games And i am going to guess that this will happen sooner or later, that we will see big IP's like doom show up more on VR.

I also have zero problems with motion sickness in VR games (yeah, lucky me), and usually turn on smooth everything, fast turning, all the movement, etc.

My VR experiences differ so wildly from the reviewers... I don't really know what to think.

This article is fake news. In light of the psvr dominating the vr landscape and ars technica's vendetta against the most popular console in the world, I consider this review a complete win for the psvr version of doom. There are reviews on YouTube that give high praises to the psvr version. I was skeptical until I read this article, which validated those YouTube reviews.

I remain convinced that FPS games are not what VR works best for. There's no real way to get around the disconnect between running about in game, and not doing so in the room you're playing.It feels that the majority of modern games are base around a FPS idea, and I think we're going to have to shift away from that into more cockpit-based games before VR really shines.

It all depends. Resident Evil 7 works extremely well in PSVR. There are definitely moments of discomfort especially if you've chosen the smooth turning, but I while I agree that FPS are not what VR works best for, I believe that FPS's work best in VR. It's really hard to get the sense of immersion that FPS games are going for when you're playing on a flat screen. I know that there's a disconnect when you're running in-game but sitting on a chair in real life, but it's an issue I can overlook. The hardest thing for me is the motion sickness, which I'm hoping to develop a stomach for the more I play in VR.

I sold my HTC Vive - I think VR is still a gimmick and once again, it will not hit mainstream.Doom VFR has not changed my mind.

VR is definitely a gimmick but a great one. It does not replace conventional gaming on a flat screen by any means, but I see it as a gaming genre of its own. At any rate, 2 million PSVR's sold in a year's time is pretty respectable and a good sign for VR fans. MS needs to follow suit and do something similar with the Xbox One X. If the PS4 can make it work, then the X should be able to.